History of Philosophy Quarterly

Volume 30, Number 1, January 2013

KANT ON EMPIRICISM
AND RATIONALISM
Alberto Vanzo

T his paper aims to correct some widely held misconceptions concern-

ing Kant’s role in the formation of a widespread narrative of early
modern philosophy.1 According to this narrative, which dominated the
English-speaking world throughout the twentieth century,2 the early
modern period was characterized by the development of two rival schools:
René Descartes’s, Baruch Spinoza’s, and G. W. Leibniz’s rationalism;
and John Locke’s, George Berkeley’s, and David Hume’s empiricism.
Empiricists and rationalists disagreed on whether all concepts are de-
rived from experience and whether humans can have any substantive
a priori knowledge, a priori knowledge of the physical world, or a priori
metaphysical knowledge.3 The early modern period came to a close, so
the narrative claims, once Immanuel Kant, who was neither an empiri-
cist nor a rationalist, combined the insights of both movements in his
new Critical philosophy. In so doing, Kant inaugurated the new eras of
German idealism and late modern philosophy.
Since the publication of influential studies by Louis Loeb and David
Fate Norton,4 the standard narrative of early modern philosophy has
come increasingly under attack. Critics hold that histories of early
modern philosophy based on the rationalism-empiricism distinction
(RED) have three biases—three biases for which, as we shall see, Kant
is often blamed.
The Epistemological Bias. Since disputes regarding a priori knowledge
belong to epistemology, the RED is usually regarded as an epistemologi-
cal distinction.5 Accordingly, histories of early modern philosophy based
on the RED tend to assume that the core of early modern philosophy
lies in the conflict between the “competing and mutually exclusive epis-
temologies” of “rationalism and empiricism.”6 They typically interpret
most of the central doctrines, developments, and disputes of the period
in the light of philosophers’ commitment to empiricist or rationalist
epistemologies. As a result, they have been criticized for the following:

53
54 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY QUARTERLY

— misinterpreting those disputes between so-called empiricists and

rationalists that derived from divergences on ontological issues,
rather than epistemology;7
— subordinating the ethics and aesthetics of early modern philoso-
phers to their epistemology, even when they were independent
from epistemological matters;8
— marginalizing political philosophy because of its independence
from epistemology.9
An author has the epistemological bias if he interprets most or all of
(those that he identifies as) the central philosophical doctrines, de-
velopments, and disputes of the early modern period in the light of
philosophers’ commitment to empiricism or rationalism.
The Kantian Bias. Histories of early modern philosophy based on the
RED tend to portray Kant as the first author who uncovered the limits
of empiricism and rationalism, rejected their mistakes, and incorporated
their correct insights within his Critical philosophy.10 This interpretation
relies on the view that Kant’s Critical philosophy is a superior alterna-
tive to empiricism and rationalism—not just a superior empiricist or
rationalist alternative to earlier forms of empiricism and rationalism,
but a superior alternative to empiricism and rationalism as such. In
order to have the Kantian bias, one must endorse this view.
The Classificatory Bias. Typically, histories of philosophy based on
the RED classify most or all early modern philosophers prior to Kant
into either the empiricist or the rationalist camps. However, these clas-
sifications have proven far from convincing. Some claim that canonical
empiricists were, in fact, rationalists or vice versa.11 Others claim that
canonical empiricists or rationalists were both empiricists and rational-
ists, neither empiricists nor rationalists, or occupied an intermediate
position between the two camps.12 Yet others note that the traditional
classifications invite historians to assume that “successive figures apply
the school’s basic (rationalist or empiricist) principles with increasing
rigor to a common body of problems, ultimately carrying them through
to their ‘logical conclusion.’”13 This led historians to overestimate the
degree of continuity within each camp; underestimate the manifold
positive influences of earlier empiricists on later rationalists and earlier
rationalists on later empiricists;14 and overlook the affinities between
the views of empiricists like Berkeley and Hume and those of rational-
ists like Malebranche and Leibniz.15 Thus, standard histories of early
modern philosophy have a classificatory bias that consists in classifying
most or all early modern authors as empiricists or rationalists.
 KANT ON EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 55

It is often alleged that Kant introduced the three biases that plague
much post-Kantian historiography. As for the classificatory bias, Kant
is said to have “argued, in the Critique of Pure Reason, that empiri-
cism and rationalism represent two comprehensive options, and that
the philosophers of his day were drawn respectively to one or other
of them.”16 “[T]his was the easiest way to describe the development of
philosophy in the two centuries prior to Kant in the light of his own
problem:”17 namely, an epistemological problem. Kant allegedly had
the epistemological bias because he reduced “the history of modern
philosophy to an epistemological clash between rationalism and em-
piricism.”18 He did this to “argue for a third option, his own, which
incorporated, as he saw it, what was true in both [empiricism and
rationalism], while avoiding their errors.”19 He exhibited the Kan-
tian bias by recommending his own philosophy as the “‘true middle
course’ between the self-revealing one-sidedness of empiricism and
­rationalism.”20
This paper provides an alternative account of Kant’s contribution to
the development of the standard narrative. The paper argues for the
following claims:
1. Kant is not directly responsible for the three biases of the stan-
dard historiography. In fact, Kant did not have any of the three
biases. He did not regard most or all early modern philosophers
as empiricists or rationalists. He did not regard his own philoso-
phy as an alternative to empiricism and rationalism as such but,
rather, as a form of rationalism. And he did not interpret most
or all of the main philosophical doctrines, developments, and
disputes of the early modern period in the light of philosophers’
commitment to empiricism or rationalism.
2. However, Kant made three indirect contributions to the develop-
ment of the standard narrative:
(a) He formulated the notions of empiricism and rationalism that
are at the basis of the standard narrative, and he employed
them in his sketches of the history of modern philosophy.
(b) He outlined, most notably in the antinomies, a dialectical
pattern of argument that would inform the standard narra-
tive.
(c) He promoted a way of writing histories of philosophy that,
once combined with (a) and (b), would give rise to the biases
of the standard narrative.
56 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY QUARTERLY

By arguing for these claims, the paper provides a first step toward a
comprehensive reconstruction of the history of the standard narrative
of early modern philosophy.
The paper is divided into seven sections. Section 1 outlines Kant’s
notions of empiricism and its rivals. Section 2 examines the role of the
RED in Kant’s sketches of the history of philosophy. Sections 3 to 5 ar-
gue that Kant did not have the three biases. Section 6 highlights Kant’s
indirect contributions to the development of the standard narrative.
Some conclusions are drawn in Section 7.

1. Three Empiricisms and Their Rivals

Kant’s Critical works contain three different notions of empiricism.
They all relate to sensory experience, albeit in different ways. The first,
which I will call immodest empiricism, is the denial that nonsensible
objects exist. The second, modest empiricism, is the denial that we can
experience certain items, regardless of whether they exist. The third,
history-empiricism, is the denial that we can form concepts or justify
synthetic judgments a priori, independently from experience.
Immodest empiricism is introduced in the Antinomy chapter of the
Critique of Pure Reason. Kant writes that, because of their “essential
distinguishing mark,” the theses can be called “the dogmatism of pure
reason,” whereas the antitheses conform to “a principle of pure em-
piricism” (A465–66/B493–94). To clarify what the “principle of pure
empiricism” and the “distinguishing mark” of dogmatism are, it is
important to recall how the theses diverge from the antitheses. They
diverge on whether certain items exist. The theses are distinctive of
dogmatism and assert the existence of a beginning of the world, spatial
boundaries of the world, indivisible objects, contracausal free actions,
and a necessary being. The antitheses express an empiricist position
and deny the existence of those items.
Empiricists deny their existence because they take the possibility of
having sensory experience of an item as a necessary condition for its
existence (A468/B496). According to empiricists,
[Immodest Empiricism] only sensible objects exist.
The reason for the charge of immodesty will become clear in what follows.
In Kant’s view, humans could never have sensory experience of the items
the antinomies are about: a moment prior to which the world did not
exist, spatial boundaries of the world, objects without parts, and so on.
Humans cannot infer the existence of those items on the basis of experi-
ence either. They are not sensible objects. Therefore, empiricists deny
their existence. For instance, empiricists deny the existence of simple
 KANT ON EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 57

objects because they “can never be exhibited in concreto either in sense

or imagination” (A469/B497). They reject contracausal freedom because
it “cannot be encountered in any experience” (A447/B475), and so on.
Against empiricists, dogmatists claim that
[Antinomy-Dogmatism] there are nonsensible objects.
In their view, sound deductive arguments prove the existence of nonsen-
sible, “intellectual starting points” of the world (A466/B494): a beginning
of the world, indivisible atoms, contra-causal freedom, and so on. Kant’s
use of the term “dogmatism” to refer to this position is more specific than
Kant’s broad sense of “dogmatism.” Dogmatism in the broad sense is
[Broad Dogmatism] the presumption of being able to acquire
metaphysical knowledge by means of a priori reasonings, without a
prior inquiry into whether metaphysical knowledge lies within hu-
man grasp.21
Not only the supporters of the theses but also the empiricists that en-
dorse the antitheses are dogmatists in the broad sense. In fact, Kant
qualifies the empiricism of the antinomies as dogmatic (A471/B499).
As is well known, Kant rejects this dogmatic form of empiricism. In
his view, empiricists should not claim that the world is eternal, that it
is infinitely extended, and that all bodies are divisible.22 They should
only claim that we can continue indefinitely in discovering new regions
of the world, identifying earlier causes of past events, and dividing each
body into increasingly smaller parts (A517–27/B545–55). Empiricists
should endorse a modest form of empiricism:
[Modest Empiricism] “in the empirical regress there can be encoun-
tered no experience of an absolute boundary, and hence no experience
of a condition as one that is absolutely unconditioned empirically.”
(A517/B545)
This empiricism is modest because it warrants claims on only what we
can experience, not on what exists or does not exist beyond the bounds
of experience. Modest empiricism is as consistent with dogmatism and
the positive claims of the theses as it is with immodest empiricism and
the negative claims of the antitheses.
The third notion of empiricism can be found in the last section of
the first Critique, titled “The History of Pure Reason.” Kant states that
philosophers can be empiricists or noologists “with regard to the origin
of pure cognitions of reason” (A854/B882). Empiricists claim that those
cognitions “are derived from experience.” Noologists claim that, “inde-
pendent from” experience, pure cognitions of reason “have their source
in reason” (A854/B882). The cognitions that Kant is referring to are
58 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY QUARTERLY

concepts and judgments. As for concepts, empiricists “take all concepts

of the understanding from experience” (Metaphysik Mrongovius, 29:763).
As for judgments, empiricists claim that no synthetic judgments can
have an a priori justification. Kant’s proof that such judgments exist
makes empiricism “completely untenable.”23 In synthesis, the empiricists
of the “History of Pure Reason” claim that
[History-Empiricism] all concepts are formed a posteriori, and all
synthetic judgments can be justified only a posteriori.
By contrast, noologists hold that
[Noologism] some concepts are not formed a posteriori, and some
synthetic judgments are justified a priori.
“Rationalism” is the term that Kant uses from the late 1780s onward to
designate noologism, that is, the admission of nonempirical concepts and
a priori principles. For instance, Kant’s unfinished manuscript on the
Progress of Metaphysics states that an affirmative answer to the question
as to whether all knowledge must “be derived solely from experience
. . . would inaugurate the empiricism of transcendental philosophy, and
a negative one the rationalism [not “noologism”] of the same” (20:275).
Thus, Kant identifies the RED with the distinction between empiricism
and noologism that he first drew in the “History of Pure Reason.”

2. Empiricism and Rationalism

in Kant’s History of Philosophy

Kant employs the notions of empiricism and rationalism in his sketches

of the history of ancient and modern philosophy.24 Some ancient philoso-
phers, like Socrates, focused only on practical philosophy. Those who
had a theoretical philosophy were either dogmatists or skeptics.25 Un-
surprisingly, Kant identifies a central problem of his own philosophy as
a main source of disputes between dogmatists: What is the origin of our
intellectual concepts?26 Depending on how philosophers answered that
question, Kant divides them into philosophers “ex principiis sensitivis”
and philosophers “ex principiis rationalibus” (Refl. 1636 [1760–72?],
16:60), that is, empiricists and noologists or rationalists. Interestingly,
some lecture transcripts differentiate not two, but three positions:
mysticism, empiricism, and rationalism.27 These classifications are
summarized in Diagram 1.
According to mystical philosophers, our concepts do not differ in kind
from perceptions or, to use Kant’s term, intuitions. Concepts are intu-
itions stored in memory. The intellect, not the senses, generated those
intuitions. Our intellect has a quasi-perceptual capacity to apprehend
concepts, in the same way in which our senses have the capacity to
 KANT ON EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 59

Ancient philosophers



Practical philosophers Theoretical philosophers



Dogmatists Sceptics

 

Empiricists [Rationalists] Mystics

Diagram 1: A classification of ancient philosophers

in Kant’s lecture transcripts.

apprehend sensory stimuli. The paradigmatic example of this view is

Plato. Kant’s lecture transcripts portray his doctrine of reminiscence as
a sort of Malebranchean vision in God. During an earlier life, we had
an intuition of God from which we derived all remaining ideas, [and]
of which we now have only weak memories, that occur to us on the
occasion of sensible appearances. Now we no longer have this because
our soul is locked up in our body as though in a prison.28
Our concepts are faded copies of the intuitions that we had in that previ-
ous life, when our soul was looking directly into God’s mind.29
Unlike Plato, rationalist philosophers differentiate concepts from
intuitions, but, unlike Aristotle, they do not take intellectual concepts to
have empirical origin. This view was not instantiated in antiquity. It can
be found only among the moderns, starting with Leibniz. He “believed
in innate ideas,” but, unlike Plato, he “left the mystical aside” by dis-
tinguishing ideas from intellectual intuitions (Metaphysik Mrongovius,
29:761, 763).
Empiricists, too, distinguish concepts from intuitions. They claim
that all concepts are acquired a posteriori on the basis of sensations.
The paradigmatic examples of this view are Aristotle and Epicurus in
antiquity, Locke and Hume in modern times. Aristotle’s intellectual
concepts are similar to Locke’s concepts of reflection. “Aristotle says: the
concepts of the understanding are not innate but rather acquired, we
60 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY QUARTERLY

obtained them on the occasion of experience, when we reflect upon the

objects of the senses.”30 Aristotle and Locke trespassed the boundaries of
their professed empiricism when they claimed that “the existence of God
can be proven from experience . . . ; but since God cannot be an object
of experience, how should I come to know his existence? Therefore the
system of Locke and Aristotle is inconsistent.”31
Epicurus and Hume were more consistent than Aristotle and Locke
because they did not assert the existence of God, human freedom, or the
immortality of the soul. In fact, they rejected metaphysics altogether
(Metaphysik von Schön, 28:466; Metaphysik K3, 29:953) and confined
themselves to physics. Within that discipline, Hume endorsed a “univer-
sal empiricism of principles” (KprV, 5:13). A cornerstone of this position is
Hume’s psychological account of the origin of the notion of cause (KprV,
5:51). This doctrine led to an unwelcome consequence: “the most rigorous
skepticism with respect to the whole of natural science,” especially “with
respect to inferences rising from effects to causes” (KprV, 5:51–52). For
Kant, the skeptical consequences of Humean empiricism are as unac-
ceptable as the contradictions arising from dogmatism, highlighted in
the antinomies. Having ruled out dogmatism as well as skepticism, Kant
concludes the “History of Pure Reason” by claiming that “[t]he critical
path alone is still open” (A856/B884).

3. The Classificatory Bias

Having surveyed Kant’s distinctions between empiricism and its rivals
and the role of the RED in Kant’s comments on the history of philosophy,
we can determine whether Kant has the classificatory bias, the Kantian
bias, and the epistemological bias. Kant will have the classificatory bias
if he claims that most or all of his early modern predecessors are either
empiricists or rationalists. We have seen that Kant classes two early
modern philosophers as empiricists: John Locke and David Hume (for
example, A854/B882; KprV, 5:13, 50–53). Kant classes only one early
modern philosopher, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, as a rationalist (A854/
B882). These classifications are represented in Table 1 (with an addition
that will be explained in the next section).

Empiricists Rationalists

Locke Leibniz
Hume Kant

Table 1: Early modern philosophers that Kant explicitly

classes as empiricists or rationalists.
 KANT ON EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 61

There are good reasons to hold that Kant regards other early modern
philosophers as rationalists or empiricists, as summarized in Table 2
below.
1. The Metaphysik Mrongovius (29:761) associates Christian Au-
gust Crusius with Plato and Leibniz. This suggests that Kant
takes Crusius to be a rationalist.
2. By combining two passages from the second Critique (5:40,
70–71), one can infer that Kant regards Michel de Mon-
taigne, Bernard Mandeville, and Francis Hutcheson as
moral empiricists, Christian Wolff and Crusius as moral
rationalists. Moral rationalists establish whether an action
is morally good on the basis of its conformity to an a priori
law. Moral empiricists establish whether an action is mor-
ally good on the basis of its consequences, namely, whether
it promotes one’s happiness.
3. By combining two passages from the third Critique (5:277–78,
346–51), one can infer that Kant would call Edmund Burke
an empiricist about beauty. Aesthetic empiricists claim that
judgments of taste can be based only on empirical principles.
Aesthetic rationalists claim that whether an object is beautiful
depends on its conformity with an a priori principle.
4. Kant does not mention any aesthetic rationalists in the third
Critique. However, he criticizes a form of aesthetic rationalism
that assimilates beauty to perfection.32 It is not difficult to iden-
tify this view with those of Wolff, Alexander Baumgarten, and
Georg Friedrich Meier, all authors whom Kant knew well.

Empiricists Rationalists

In general Crusius
In ethics Montaigne Wolff
Mandeville Crusius
Hutcheson
In aesthetics Burke Wolff
Baumgarten
Meier

Table 2: Early modern philosophers that Kant appears

to regard as empiricists or rationalists.
62 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY QUARTERLY

In order to extend Kant’s list of empiricists and rationalists, it is tempt-

ing to identify the empiricists and noologists of the “History of Pure
Reason” with the immodest empiricists and dogmatists of the antino-
mies. This temptation should be resisted because the two distinctions
do not map onto each another. Immodest empiricists can be noologists.
They can claim that all objects are sensible and that we know some of
their features a priori. For instance, we may know a priori that all objects
are subjected to the causal law. Modest empiricists can be noologists,
too. As we shall see, Kant himself endorses not only modest empiricism
but also noologism.
Additionally, the antinomies do not introduce any clear-cut distinction
among Kant’s predecessors. For instance, if we look at the first antinomy,
we find the Newtonian Samuel Clarke endorsing the argument for the
thesis and the rationalist Leibniz endorsing the argument for the an-
tithesis.33 This is the opposite of what one would expect because Kant
ascribes the theses to dogmatists and the antitheses to empiricists. If we
look at the second antinomy, we find both Leibniz and Clarke endorsing
key assumptions at the basis of the proofs of the thesis and antithesis.34
Kant reserves the term “rationalism” for the noologism of the “History
of Pure Reason,” rather than antinomy-dogmatism. It is best to follow
Kant’s policy and avoid conflating the RED, introduced in the “History
of Pure Reason,” with the distinction between immodest empiricists and
antinomy-dogmatists.
Tables 1 and 2 fail to mention many prominent early modern authors.
These include canonical empiricists like Francis Bacon, Pierre Gassendi,
Robert Boyle, and George Berkeley, and canonical rationalists like René
Descartes and Nicolas Malebranche, in addition to Thomas Hobbes,
Jean le Rond d’Alembert, Julien Offray de La Mettrie, Claude Helvetius,
Thomas Reid, James Oswald, James Beattie, and Joseph Priestley. Kant
mentions them all, but he categorizes none of them as an empiricist or
a rationalist.35 Since so many authors escape the RED in Kant’s texts,
Kant is hardly responsible for introducing the classificatory bias within
the historiography of early modern philosophy.
I am not claiming that, given Kant’s statements, it would be incon-
sistent for him to have the classificatory bias. Nor am I denying that,
when Wilhelm Gottlieb Tennemann and others carried out extensive
classifications of early modern authors as being either empiricists or
rationalists, they were acting in a broadly Kantian spirit. Kant often
looks at earlier philosophers as examples of ideal types like empiri-
cism or rationalism, rather than as exponents of determinate historical
movements. The classificatory bias that can be found in Tennemann
and others derives from an extensive application of Kant’s typological
 KANT ON EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 63

approach to the history of philosophy. Nevertheless, having the clas-

sificatory bias means classifying most or all early modern authors as
empiricists or rationalists, and such classifications cannot be found in
Kant’s texts.

4. The Kantian Bias

According to several scholars, the only early modern philosopher that
Kant classes neither as an empiricist nor as a rationalist is himself. By
placing himself over and above empiricism and rationalism, Kant would
be the source of the Kantian bias.
Kant had a lifelong tendency to single out apparently irresoluble
contrasts between pairs of philosophical theories, only to put forward
his own views as superior to both alternatives: Newtonian dynamics
and Leibnizian monadology in physics, dogmatism and skepticism in
metaphysics, Epicureanism and Stoicism in ethics, realism and sub-
jectivism about beauty. The antinomies of the first Critique provide
a famous example of this strategy, while introducing the distinction
between empiricism and dogmatism. It is natural to expect that Kant
applied his strategy of divide et impera to position his own philosophy
over and above empiricism and rationalism.
Contrary to this expectation, Kant’s texts never state that his phi-
losophy is an alternative to empiricism and rationalism as such. There
are plenty of occasions on which he could have made this claim. For
instance, Kant makes clear in the “Annotation to the Amphiboly” that he
takes his philosophy to be superior to those of Locke, who “sensitivized
the concepts of understanding,” and Leibniz, who “intellectualized the
appearances” (A271/B327). Since Kant classes Locke as an empiricist
and Leibniz as a rationalist, the passage indicates that Kant takes his
philosophy to be superior to their particular brands of empiricism and
rationalism. Yet neither on this occasion, nor on others, does Kant add
that his philosophy is superior to empiricism and rationalism as such.
On the contrary, while he argues in the second Critique that his moral
philosophy is superior to the moral rationalism of Wolff and Crusius
and the moral empiricism of Montaigne and others, he still character-
izes his moral philosophy as a kind of rationalism—a “rationalism of
the capacity of judgment” (KprV, 5:71). Similarly, Kant rejects Burke’s
empiricism and Wolff ’s rationalism in aesthetics in the third Critique.
However, he still endorses “rationalism of the principle of taste” (KU,
5:347). Kant contrasts his own aesthetic rationalism with the rational-
ism of Wolff, Baumgarten, and Meier by qualifying their rationalism as
realist and his as idealist. He portrays his idealist aesthetic rationalism
as superior to aesthetic empiricism on the one hand and realist aesthetic
64 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY QUARTERLY

rationalism on the other. However, he still characterizes his position as

a form of rationalism instead of characterizing it, as Kant scholars often
do,36 as a Critical alternative to aesthetic empiricism and rationalism
as such.
Did Kant regard his theoretical philosophy, too, like his ethics and
aesthetics, as a form of rationalism? Kant’s texts provide three reasons
to hold that he did.
1. According to the “History of Pure Reason,” noologists hold that
we have “pure cognitions of reason” and that these “have their
source in reason,” “independent from” experience (A854/B882).
Some of the central arguments of the first Critique aim to estab-
lish precisely those claims. Specifically, they argue that some of
our concepts—the categories—have a nonempirical origin and
that we can know some synthetic judgments to be true a priori.
For Kant, these are distinctive views of noologists, that is, ra-
tionalists.
Note that Kant could not call himself a rationalist if he regarded
the claim that we have innate concepts as constitutive of ratio-
nalism, as scholars sometimes do.37 Kant agrees with empiricists
that “all our cognition commences with experience” (B1) and
that there are “absolutely no implanted or innate representa-
tions” (Entd., 8:221). Kant only ascribes the claim that we have
pure (that is, nonempirical) concepts to rationalists. He takes
his categories to be pure, nonempirical concepts because they
are acquired through a mental process that, albeit triggered by
experience, “brings them about, a priori, out of” our “cognitive
faculty,” without relying on any information provided by the
senses.38 Some Kantian texts refer to this process as the original
or a priori acquisition of the categories,39 which is parallel to the
original acquisition of our representation of space (Entd., 8:223).
2. A passage of the Progress of Metaphysics, written in the first
half of the 1790s and already mentioned, discusses the possible
answers to the question as to whether “all knowledge” is “to be
derived solely from experience” (20:275). The text states that a
negative answer inaugurates “the rationalism” of transcendental
philosophy. Kant had given such a negative answer a few years
earlier, at the beginning of the 1787 introduction to the Critique
of Pure Reason:
As far as time is concerned, then, no cognition in us precedes experi-
ence. . . . But although all our cognition commences with experience,
yet it does not on that account all arise from experience. (B1)
 KANT ON EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 65

The “Transcendental Aesthetic” and “Transcendental Analytic”

of the first Critique provide extended arguments for that claim.
3. Three transcripts of Kant’s metaphysics lectures from the first
half of the 1790s indicate that Kant, at that time, was endorsing
a form of rationalism. The transcript of Kant’s third lecture from
the winter semester 1792/1793 outlines his view that concepts
such as those of cause and effect are not innate but acquired a
priori. Then, after alluding to alternative positions (Epicurus’s
empiricism and Plato’s mysticism), the text states, “It is ratio-
nalism that we seek, in fact, we want to regard our cognitions
as acquired a priori” (28:619). The transcript of this lecture
ends three sentences later. The transcript of the next lecture
starts by elaborating on the earlier endorsement of rationalism.
The text explains that there are two types of rationalism: dog-
matic rationalism and Critical rationalism. The latter “begins
by inquiring into human reason . . . as regards its extension,
content and limits” (28:619). As we know from the Prolegomena
(4:261), the philosophy that Kant took to have first determined
the extension, content, and limits of human reason is his own
Critical philosophy. This suggests that Critical rationalism and
Critical philosophy and identical.
The Metaphysik K2, based on lectures from the early 1790s,
outlines the same distinction between dogmatic and Critical
rationalism and laments that, in the past, “the critical method of
rationalism has never been followed.”40 This rules out the identi-
fication of Critical rationalism with any pre-Kantian philosophy.
For the Metaphysik K3, based on lectures from 1794/1795, ratio-
nalism is “the principle of the possibility to represent cognitions
a priori” (29:953). A priori cognitions are either analytic or
synthetic. Kant finds the possibility to represent analytic cogni-
tions a priori relatively unproblematic. Instead, the possibility to
represent synthetic cognitions a priori is as puzzling as it is vital
for the sorts of metaphysics. As Kant states in the Prolegomena
(4:278), “[a]ll metaphysicians are . . . solemnly and lawfully sus-
pended from their occupations until such a time as they shall
have satisfactorily answered the question: How are synthetic
cognitions a priori possible?” By satisfactorily answering that
question, Kant’s Critical philosophy provides the foundations
of the true metaphysics. Accordingly, the Metaphysik K3 calls
Critical rationalism “the first proposition of all metaphysical
truths,”41 confirming the identification of Critical rationalism
with Critical philosophy.
66 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY QUARTERLY

Admittedly, the most explicit indications that Kant took his philoso-
phy to be a form of rationalism can be found in lecture notes, which are
far less reliable than Kant’s own works and must be used with care.
However, the passages at stake are from three different transcripts. The
approximate datings of the lectures on which the transcripts are based
are uncontroversial and can be traced back to a time span of only five
years (1790–95),42 all well within the Critical period. The meaning of
each passage taken individually is rather clear, and the passages are
consistent with one another. They are also consistent with the doctrine
of the original acquisition that is sketched in several texts from 1770 to
the 1790s and with statements in the first Critique, the Prolegomena,
and the Progress of Metaphysics. As we saw above, some of those other
statements also suggest that Kant took his theoretical philosophy to be
a form of rationalism. This is in line with Kant’s explicit categorization
of his ethics and aesthetics as rationalist. For all these reasons, we can
rely on the collective evidence provided by the lecture transcripts and
the other texts to conclude that Kant did take his philosophy to be a
form of rationalism.
Of course, Kant took his philosophy to be more than just another
form of rationalism. He regarded it as the only true rationalism. As
we saw in Section 2, he criticized earlier forms of rationalism as much
as earlier forms of empiricism. At the same time, he accepted tenets of
earlier empiricists and rationalists. For instance, he combined Locke’s
emphasis on the necessity of sensory input for knowledge acquisition
with Leibniz’s admission of substantive a priori knowledge. Neverthe-
less, Kant did not see his combination of the views of earlier empiricists
and rationalists as an alternative to empiricism and rationalism as such
but, rather, as a higher form of rationalism.
One may question whether Kant was right in viewing his philosophy
in that way. Few scholars ever claimed that Kant was indeed a rational-
ist, with the notable exceptions of some of his first readers and Erich
Adickes.43 Most regarded Kant’s philosophy as a via media between
empiricism and rationalism that is neither empiricist nor rationalist.
Others, like Wayne Waxman, take Kant’s project to be steeped in Locke’s,
Berkeley’s, and Hume’s philosophical tradition.44
However things may be, whether Kant had the Kantian bias does
not depend on whether his philosophy actually is a form of rationalism,
empiricism, or neither. One has the Kantian bias if one holds that Kant’s
Critical philosophy is a superior alternative to empiricism and rational-
ism as such, regardless of whether one is correct in holding this. This
applies to Kant, too. The evidence assembled in this section establishes
that he did not take his own philosophy to be an alternative to empiri-
 KANT ON EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 67

cism and rationalism as such. This is sufficient to conclude that he did

not have Kantian bias, regardless of whether he was correct in viewing
his own philosophy as a form of rationalism.

5. The Epistemological Bias

It is hard to deny that epistemology occupies an important place within
Kant’s philosophical project. In the theoretical sphere, Kant answers the
“general question” as to the possibility of metaphysics (Prol., 4:271) by
determining the possibility, extent, and boundaries of a priori knowledge.
In the practical sphere, Kant defends the possibility of moral respon-
sibility by relying on the assumption that we cannot know whether
our actions are free or determined. However, whether Kant had the
epistemological bias that is at issue in this paper does not depend on
whether he ascribed an important place to epistemology within his
overall philosophical project. It depends on whether he interpreted most
or all of those that he identifies as the central philosophical doctrines,
developments, and disputes of the early modern period in the light of
philosophers’ commitments to empiricism and rationalism.
As we have seen, Kant interprets some of Locke’s, Hume’s, and Leib-
niz’s doctrines in the light of their empiricism and rationalism. These are
Locke’s and Leibniz’s views on the origin of concepts, Locke’s proof of the
existence of God, and Hume’s account of the origin of the notion of cause.
Kant also suggests that Locke’s and Hume’s philosophy of mathematics
is best assessed in the light of their empiricism.45 Additionally, Kant
interprets one early modern development, the development from Locke
to Hume, in the light of the notion of empiricism. Finally, he explains
the divergence between Locke and Leibniz on the origin of concepts as
a divergence between Locke’s empiricism and Leibniz’s rationalism.
There are several other early modern doctrines and developments that
Kant does not interpret in the light of the RED. I will provide examples
concerning Bacon, Descartes, and Berkeley. Kant holds that a central
development at the roots of early modern thought is the emergence of a
new method for natural philosophy based on experiments and observa-
tions. Like his contemporaries, Johann Nikolaus Tetens and Christian
Garve, Kant praises Bacon for pioneering this new method.46 Tetens and
Garve held that Locke and Hume applied Bacon’s method to the study of
the human mind.47 Many authors after Kant would make similar claims,
linking Bacon to Locke and Hume in their accounts of early modern
empiricism. Unlike them, Kant does not relate Bacon’s reliance on ob-
servations and experiments to Locke’s and Hume’s empiricism. Kant’s
lecture transcripts do not mention Locke or Hume, but Descartes as a
follower of Bacon’s new method.48
68 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY QUARTERLY

Kant sees Descartes as a source of important early modern doctrines.

He often mentions and criticizes the cogito argument, Descartes’s view
that introspection is more trustworthy than the outer senses, and his
version of the ontological argument for the existence of God (for example,
A355, B274–75, A347/B405). From a Kantian standpoint, the cogito
argument and Descartes’s version of the ontological argument could be
good examples of the rationalist attempt to establish synthetic claims
independently of experience. Yet Kant never includes these or other
Cartesian arguments within a history of early modern rationalism. He
never groups Descartes, Malebranche, or Spinoza together with Leibniz
so as to provide a rationalist counterpart to his account of how Hume’s
skepticism derived from Locke’s empiricism.
Instead of grouping Descartes together with Spinoza and Leibniz,
Kant categorizes him as an idealist together with Berkeley—another
author who, since Kant first replied to the Garve-Feder review in the
Prolegomena, was important in his eyes but was never categorized as an
empiricist or a rationalist. Kant does not articulate any account of early
modern thought based on the evolution of idealism or its contrast with
realism. More fundamental than idealism and realism, empiricism and
rationalism, are to him the three categories of dogmatism, skepticism,
and Critical philosophy or Criticism. The unfinished manuscript on the
Progress of Metaphysics identifies them repeatedly as the three main
stages in the history of metaphysics, and the first Critique begins and
ends by locating Kant’s critical philosophy with respect to the antago-
nism between dogmatism and skepticism (Avii-xii, A855–56/B883–84).
Yet he typically describes them in abstract terms, with few or no ref-
erences to early modern philosophers. He could have easily combined
the distinction between dogmatism, skepticism, and Criticism with the
distinction between empiricism and rationalism, identifying them as the
two varieties of dogmatism that can be found in the early modern period.
The distinction between empiricism, rationalism, and skepticism could
then have provided a template for a comprehensive account of early
modern thought that focuses on epistemological issues. Karl Leonhard
Reinhold would provide such an account as early as in 1791.49 Unlike
Reinhold and many authors after him, Kant did not provide any such
account. He interpreted some, but not most, of the central philosophical
doctrines, developments, and disputes of the early modern period in the
light of the distinction between empiricism and rationalism. Not Kant
but his followers employed the epistemological dichotomy of empiricism
and rationalism as the overarching organizing principle for the history
of early modern thought.
 KANT ON EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 69

6. Kant’s Contribution to the Standard Narrative

of Early Modern Philosophy

Although Kant did not have the classificatory, Kantian, and epistemo-
logical biases that characterize the standard narrative of early modern
philosophy, he promoted a way of writing histories of philosophy from
which those biases would naturally flow. He did so by endorsing four
tenets.
(a) The history of philosophy is a philosophical discipline. Kant took
the section of the first Critique on the history of pure reason to
designate “a place that is left open in the system” of philosophy
(A852/B880). This provides “a secure touchstone for appraising
the philosophical content of old and new works in this specialty”
(B27). Historians should assess past philosophies from a Kantian
point of view.
(b) Historians of philosophy should reconstruct the “natural train
of thought through which philosophy had to progressively de-
velop from human reason” (Briefwechsel, 12:36). The “temporal
sequence” of dogmatism, skepticism, and Criticism “is founded
in the nature of man’s cognitive capacity” (Fort., 20:264). Given
the nature of human psychology, humans have an inclination to
embrace dogmatism, discover its flaws, move on to skepticism,
be dissatisfied by it, and keep searching until they reach the safe
haven of Criticism. Historians of philosophy should show how the
temporal sequence of specific systems exemplifies this natural
psychological development of the human mind.
(c) Given the nature of human psychology, it is unavoidable that
humans go through the three stages of dogmatism, skepticism,
and Criticism. Historians should make the unavoidability of this
process apparent. They should show how the “opinions which
have chanced to arise here and there” instantiate “what should
have happened,” how reason must necessarily develop “himself
from concepts” (Fort., 20:343).
(d) In line with his tendency to endorse intermediate views between
two extremes, as discussed above, Kant regards his Critical
philosophy as a middle way between the extremes of dogmatism
and skepticism. It combines the dogmatists’ claim that we can
know the external world with the skeptics’ claim that we can-
not know mind-independent objects. Historians of philosophy
should describe this historical movement from the two extremes
of dogmatism and skepticism to their higher synthesis in Kant’s
Critical philosophy.
70 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY QUARTERLY

Although Kant regarded his philosophy as a synthesis of dogmatism

and skepticism, he did not regard it as a synthesis of empiricism and
rationalism as such. He also employed a pattern of argument based on
the rejection, unification, and overcoming of dichotomies into a third
viewpoint. The standard historiography of early modern philosophy
saw the light once Reinhold, Tennemann, and others picked up Kant’s
notions of rationalism and history-empiricism; they employed Kant’s
dialectical pattern of argument to portray his philosophy as a higher
synthesis of those movements; and they followed Kant’s advice by
writing philosophical histories of philosophy. Their histories exhibit
the inexorable, necessary process (c) whereby human reason naturally
evolved (b) from two unacceptable, extreme positions to Kant’s higher (a),
intermediate (d) point of view. Post-Kantian historians developed this
narrative by focusing on epistemological issues, classifying most early
modern thinkers as empiricists or rationalists and portraying Kant’s
philosophy as a synthesis of both movements. Kant did not have these
three biases. Yet, given his influence on the standard historiography, it
should not be surprising that it retains a Kantian flavor.

7. Conclusion
In this paper, I have argued that Kant did not have the three biases,
although he indirectly contributed to the development of the standard
narrative. The first historians who developed accounts of early modern
philosophy that revolve around the RED and display the three biases
did this by employing Kantian notions and embracing Kantian views
on the historiography of philosophy.
According to the Kantian historian par excellence, Wilhelm Gottlieb
Tennemann, “[t]he Critical inquiries of the philosopher from Königsberg
had the most beneficial consequences not only for philosophy itself, but
also for the history of philosophy.”50 Nowadays, few would agree that the
consequences of Kant’s views on the historiography of philosophy were
the most beneficial. Nevertheless, Kant’s views had a remarkable influ-
ence on how many philosophers have understood their early modern
predecessors. It is important to recognize the extent to which their un-
derstanding was shaped by Kantian views on the nature of philosophical
historiography. This should alert us to the wide-ranging consequences
that historians’ assumptions on the nature and method of philosophical
historiography can have for the way they reconstruct their philosophical
past. To be aware of this is especially important now, when the limits of
the traditional historiography of early modern philosophy have become
apparent and many are looking for new, enhanced narratives.51

University of Warwick
 KANT ON EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 71

NOTES

1. The Critique of Pure Reason is cited, as customary, with A/B numbers.

Other writings by Kant are cited with the title (sometimes in an abbreviated
form), followed by the volume and page number of the Academy Edition. Quotes
from Kant’s writings which have been translated into English are from the
Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, gen. ed. P. Guyer and A. W.
Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999–).
2. See, e.g., B. Russell, A History of Western Philosophy and Its Connec-
tion with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the
Present Day (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1945); J. Shand, Philosophy and
Philosophers: An Introduction to Western Philosophy (London: UCL Press,
1993), chs. 4–6.
3. See, e.g., S. Brown, “Introduction,” in Routledge History of Philosophy,
vol. 5: British Philosophy and the Age of Enlightenment, ed. S. Brown (London:
Routledge, 1996), 1–15, at 10; S. Priest, The British Empiricists, 2d ed. (London:
Routledge, 2007), 5.
4. L. E. Loeb, From Descartes to Hume: Continental Metaphysics and the
Development of Modern Philosophy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981);
D. F. Norton, “The Myth of British Empiricism,” History of European Ideas 1
(1981): 331–44.
5. See, e.g., P. J. Markie, “Rationalism vs. Empiricism,” in The Stan-
ford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. E. N. Zalta, Fall 2008 Edition, <http://
plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/rationalism-empiricism/>, §1.
6. S. Gaukroger, The Collapse of Mechanism and the Rise of Sensibility:
Science and the Shaping of Modernity, 1680–1760 (Oxford: Clarendon, 2010),
156. See K. Haakonssen, “The History of Eighteenth-Century Philosophy:
History or Philosophy?” in The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century
Philosophy, ed. K. Haakonssen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2006), 3–25, at 6.
7. See H.-J. Engfer, Empirismus versus Rationalismus? Kritik eines phi-
losophiegeschichtlichen Schemas (Padeborn: Schöning, 1996), 112, 235, 292;
S. Buckle, “British Sceptical Realism: A Fresh Look at the British Tradition,”
European Journal of Philosophy 7 (1999): 1–29, at 1–2.
8. See Haakonssen 2006, 14.
9. Ibid. For a related criticism, see I. Hunter, Rival Enlightenments: Civil
and Metaphysical Philosophy in Early Modern Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2001), 1–29.
10. For an early example, see W. G. Tennemann, Geschichte der Philosophie,
12 vols. (Leipzig: Barth, 1798–1819).
11. See, among others, N. Rescher, Leibniz: An Introduction to His Phi-
losophy (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1979), 124 on Leibniz’s empiricism; H. M.
72 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY QUARTERLY

Bracken, Berkeley (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1974), 15–17, 259 on Berkeley’s
rationalism.
12. See, e.g., R. A. Watson, “Shadow History in Philosophy,” Journal of
the History of Philosophy 31 (1993): 95–109, at 97; D. Garber, “Descartes and
Experiment in the Discourse and Essays,” in Essays on the Philosophy and Sci-
ence of René Descartes, ed. S. Voss (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993),
288–310, at 306.
13. Loeb 1981, 13–14.
14. For example, Descartes’s influence on Locke (ibid., 36–62) and Leibniz’s
influence on Hume (Engfer 1996, 329–32).
15. See, e.g., H. Ishiguro, “Pre-established Harmony versus Constant
Conjunction: A Reconsideration of the Distinction between Rationalism and
Empiricism,” in Rationalism, Empiricism, and Idealism: British Academy
Lectures on the History of Philosophy, ed. A. Kenny (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996),
61–85.
16. R. Scruton, Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and Survey (London:
Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994), 30. See M. Gentile, Se e come è possibile la storia
della filosofia (Padua: Liviana, 1966), 60; Gaukroger 2010, 156.
17. Gentile 1966, 60. See R. Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), 148.
18. Haakonssen 2006, 18. See A. Waldow, “Empiricism and Its Roots in the
Ancient Medical Tradition,” in The Body as Object and Instrument of Knowledge:
Embodied Empiricism in Early Modern Science, ed. C. T. Wolfe and O. Gal
(Dordrecht: Springer, 2010), 287–308, at 307.
19. Scruton 1994, 30. See S. Schmauke, Wohlthätigste Verirrung: Kants
kosmologische Antinomien (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2002), 106;
H. Holzhey and V. Mudroch, Historical Dictionary of Kant and Kantianism
(Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2005), 111–12.
20. Engfer 1996, 357, see 411; E. Papadimitriou, “Zu den philosophie­
geschichtlichen Voraussetzungen der Kantischen Kritik der reinen Vernunft,” in
Akten des 4. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses, ed. G. Funke (Berlin: de Gruyter,
1981), vol. I.1, 39–47, at 39, 41; I. Hunter, “The History of Philosophy and the
Persona of the Philosopher,” Modern Intellectual History 4 (2007): 572–600, at
592–94.
21. See Bxxxv.
22. I focus on only the first two antinomies for the sake of brevity.
23. Welches sind die wirklichen Fortschritte, die die Metaphysik seit Leibni-
zens und Wolf’s Zeiten in Deutschland gemacht hat? (henceforth Fort.), 20:275.
24. To reconstruct Kant’s views, we must rely to a significant extent on ma-
terials that Kant never intended to be published, especially manuscript notes
(Reflexionen) and lecture transcripts. These materials must be used with caution
(see E. Conrad, Kants Logikvorlesungen als neuer Schlüssel zur Architektonik
 KANT ON EMPIRICISM AND RATIONALISM 73

der Kritik der reinen Vernunft [Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 1994], 43–65).

In what follows, I take materials from the 1770s into account, in addition to
texts from the Critical period narrowly understood (1781–1804). The accounts
of the history of philosophy in Kant’s texts from the 1770s are informative and
mostly consistent with his later views.
25. See Refl. 1636 (ca. 1760–72?), 16:60; Logik Philippi, 24:327–31.
26. Metaphysik Mrongovius, 29:759; Metaphysik Volckmann, 28:373.
27. Ibid.; Metaphysik Dohna, 28:619; Metaphysik K3, 29:953; compare Kritik
der praktischen Vernunft (henceforth KprV), 5:70–71, on practical philosophy.
28. Metaphysik Mrongovius, 29:760; see Metaphysik K3, 29:953–54.
29. See, e.g., Refl. 6050–51 (1776–89?), 16:434–35, 437; Metaphysik L1,
28:232; Metaphysik K3, 29:953.
30. Metaphysik Mrongovius, 29:761; see Logik Philippi, 24:327.
31. Metaphysik Volckmann, 28:375; see A854–55/B882–83.
32. See Kritik der Urtheilskraft (henceforth KU), 5:347.
33. See H. E. Allison, Kant’s Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and
Defense, 2d ed., revised and enlarged (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
2004), 366.
34. See M. Grier, Kant’s Doctrine of Transcendental Illusion (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2001), 205–9.
35. See A752/B780; B274; Prolegomena, 4:258; KU, 5:308–9, 393; Religion,
6:74 n.; Pragmatische Anthropologie, 7:223; Opus postumum, 21:239; Praktische
Philosophie Powalski, 27:100; Danziger Physik, 29:107.
36. See, e.g., R. Zuckert, Kant on Beauty and Biology: An Interpretation of
the Critique of Judgment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 177.
37. See, e.g., R. Schwartz, “Rationalism vs. Empiricism,” in The MIT Ency-
clopedia of the Cognitive Sciences, ed. R. A. Wilson and F. C. Keil (Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 1999), 703–5, at 704.
38. See Über eine Entdeckung nach der alle neue Kritik der reinen Vernunft
durch eine ältere entbehrlich gemacht werden soll (henceforth Entd.), 8:221.
39. For example, De mundi sensibilis atque intelligibilis forma et principiis,
2:395; Metaphysik Dohna, 28:619; Metaphysik K3, 29:951–52.
40. Metaphysik K2, 28:710.
41. Metaphysik K3, 29:953.
42. See S. Naragon, Kant in the Classroom, http://www.manchester.edu/
kant/Notes/notesMetaphysics.htm (accessed March 11, 2013).
43. See, e.g., C. G. Selle, “De la realité et l’idéalité des objets de nos conois-
sances,” Memoires de l’Académie Royale des Sciences et Belles-Lettres (1786–87):
577–612; E. Adickes, “Die bewegenden Kräfte in Kants ­philosophischer
74 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY QUARTERLY

­ ntwickung und die beiden Pole seines Systems,” Kant-Studien 1 (1897):

E
9–59, 161–96, 352–415, at 29.
44. See W. Waxman, Kant and the Empiricists: Understanding Understand-
ing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
45. See KprV, 5:13, 52; Entd., 8:211 n.
46. See, e.g., Pragmatische Anthropologie, 7:223; Wiener Logik, 24:804;
Danziger Physik, 29:107.
47. See J. N. Tetens, “Über die allgemeine speculativische Philosophie”
[1775], in Über die allgemeine speculativische Philosophie. Philosophische
Versuche über die menschliche Natur und ihre Entwickelung (Berlin: Reuther
& Reichard, 1913), 1:1–72, at 68–69; C. Garve, “Einige Beobachtungen über
die Kunst zu denken,” in his Versuche über verschiedene Gegenstände aus der
Moral, der Litteratur und dem gesellschaftlichen Leben, vol. 2 (Breslau: Horn,
1796), 245–430, at 297, 401, 403, 405, 427.
48. See, e.g., Wiener Logik, 24:804; Metaphysik L2, 28:539; Danziger Physik,
29:107.
49. See K. L. Reinhold, Ueber das Fundament des philosophischen Wissens
nebst einigen Erläuterungen über die Theorie des Vorstellungsvermögen, in
Gesammelte Schriften: Kommentierte Ausgabe, ed. M. Bondeli, vol. 4 (Basel:
Schwabe, 2001 [1791]); partial trans. as The Foundation of Philosophical
Knowledge: Together with Some Comments Concerning the Theory of the Fac-
ulty of Representation, in Between Kant and Hegel: Texts in the Development of
Post-Kantian Idealism, ed. G. di Giovanni and H. S. Harris, 52–103 (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1985).
50. W. G. Tennemann, “Revision der Bearbeitung der Geschichte der Phi-
losophie in den letzten drey Quinquennien,” Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung.
Ergänzungsblätter 2 (1801): cols. 25–30, 33–64, 529–49, at 27–28.
51. I would like to thank Peter Anstey, Tim Mehigan, Eric Watkins, and
participants at conferences in Dunedin and Mainz for helpful comments and
criticisms on earlier versions of this paper.